


Haunt

by avi17



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Really not a drabble anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-04 01:04:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avi17/pseuds/avi17
Summary: Python had never given much thought to how it might feel to be dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a drabble challenge on my RP blog, but ended up as enough of a stand-alone thing that I figured I'd post it here.

Python had never given much thought to how it might feel to be dead. He’d figured it wouldn’t feel like much of anything, because you're _dead._  His end had been thankfully quick- the last thing he remembers seeing as a living man is Duma’s massive repulsive eye glowing and then- nothing.  He’d thought that was it.

He _certainly_ hadn’t believed in ghosts, and yet, here he is- perched on an orange tree branch, swinging his legs like he did as a child- a spectator at his own funeral.

They knight him post-mortem at Forsyth’s insistence, which is ridiculous, and mostly serves to drive home that Forsyth never really understood what he wanted at all.  But it seems to bring Forsyth comfort- what little there is to be had- so _Sir_ Python doesn’t begrudge it too much.

He spends that night in Lukas’ quarters, and many after it, because he can’t bear to sit and watch Forsyth cry for hours on end and not be able to do anything. Lukas doesn’t cry. That used to drive Python crazy- the impossible degree of calm he could have in even the worst situations- but now he’s glad of it. There’s an odd sense of relief to see that Lukas is still Lukas, especially as he begins to suspect that Forsyth will never be the same again.

Python tries several times to speak to Lukas, but it’s quickly apparent that Lukas can’t see or hear him. (He tests this once by telling the filthiest story he can think of- Lukas’ ears seem to go slightly red, but he still doesn’t respond, so that might have just been his imagination.) Once, he reaches out to lay his hand over Lukas’ on his desk, just to see what will happen- he expects nothing, but Lukas goes white as a sheet and recoils, shoving his chair back and all but fleeing from the room. Python doesn’t know what exactly he felt, but he doesn’t return again until the following evening, and the room is unbearably quiet without him.

Maybe it’s a sign that he could be reached, but he decides that he’d rather have the company than bother to try again.

-

Forsyth leaves for a remote post near the borderlands a month after Python is buried.

“I tried to go with him, y'know,” he says conversationally to Lukas’ curtains one night. There’s little point in talking directly to Lukas- he remains as deaf to Python’s spectral voice as ever- but he’s so quiet while he’s working that it almost feels like he’s listening. “Forsyth, I mean. When he left. Got as far as the castle gates, but that was it.”  His best guess is that he’s unable to stray far from where he’s buried- why the hell that would be he doesn’t know, but it’s not as though being a ghost makes him an expert.

He glances towards Lukas, hunched over a pile of inventories at his desk, and flashes him a wry smile that he’ll never be able to see.

“Ironic, ain’t it? This was the one place I never wanted to be, and now I’m stuck.”

There’s no answer beyond the scratching of Lukas’ quill, but for a brief, impossible moment, Python could swear that he smiles.

-

Lukas is tired and unhappy, moreso with every day that passes.  Python doesn’t need to be able to speak with him to see that.  He leans more heavily on his cane every time he returns from a skirmish or patrol, and the dark circles beneath his eyes are plainly visible in the lamplight at night when he reads.

Sometimes, Python snoops over his shoulder- his reading was never good, but with years of little to do _but_ snoop, it’s improved to the point that he can make out most words.  A few weeks earlier, he’d caught a glimpse of Forsyth’s wedding invitation.  There’s still a painful lump in his throat when he thinks of it, but mostly he hopes that Forsyth was able to find some happiness without him.  Tonight, it’s a dry, academic text about the history of Zofia- Python finds himself yawning, but Lukas is enraptured, and it takes him much longer to finally blow out the lamp than usual.

In the wee hours of the morning, while Lukas sleeps, Python sits at the foot of his bed, sprawled and casual as ever.  It’s been a long time since he spoke to Lukas and had any hope that he’d be heard, but tonight he does, and he sighs softly.

“It’s okay if you wanna go, Luke,” he murmurs.  “You’ve got a lot more to offer than fighting, even I know that.  You’ve given ‘em enough.”

Lukas submits his retirement the next day.

-

Once Lukas is gone, the passage of years feels somehow simultaneously endless and like the blink of an eye.  Python just…exists, with no one left that he cares for and having long since given up attempting to leave the castle grounds.  It feels as though he’s _waiting_ for something, but it’s impossible to know what, so he remains, endlessly tethered to a place that means less to him than ever.

Lukas does visit the castle from time to time, and it warms Python’s heart to see him, even though he looks grayer and frailer with each passing season.  His school is well-known now, and the younger knights- many of whom were his students- greet him with fond respect.

Forsyth never sets foot in the capital again.

Eventually, Lukas also stops coming, and one warm day in Flostym, Python finds himself hovering over another funeral.

Lukas is buried in state on account of his years of service to the King and Queen, even though most will remember him as a quiet, patient teacher who squinted through his reading glasses and gave advice free of judgement.  When the last shovelful of earth is laid, Python feels a presence beside him, and he looks over to see a red mop of hair and a young, soft face that he hasn’t seen in decades.  He grins.

"Lukas.  You ginger stud.”  It’s a joke from a lifetime ago, but for the first time, Lukas _hears him,_ and his incredulous laugh is the sweetest sound Python has heard in a long time.  He feels _lighter,_ and finally, he thinks he understands what has kept him here.

“Don’t worry,” he assures his new companion, still smiling, but glancing out in the direction of a little border village.  “I think we’re just waitin’ on one more.  Shouldn’t be long.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hadn't intended to write a second part to this, but here we are.

They wait longer than Python would have expected, after Lukas' arrival.  It is nearly fifty years since the unification of the One Kingdom- but then, Forsyth was always a fighter, and Python should have known that even age would not take him easily.  He listens to the castle gossip, but few have cause to talk about an old knight long ago driven from the spotlight by grief.  The last news he heard was of Forsyth's retirement, but that must have been a decade ago- it's harder than ever to gauge the passage of time when he feels so far removed from it.

Still, his strange, transitional existence is much more bearable with company.  He and Lukas have much to talk about, even though Lukas is even quieter than Python remembers.  Despite the renewed youth of his appearance, he's lived a lifetime, and Python is painfully aware that he was only truly part of it for less than two short years.  There's so much that he missed, and he pries it from Lukas' lips bit by bit- his favorite books and his least favorite students, the cat who'd moved into his schoolhouse and never left.  The admission that he'd never been able to completely forgive his brother for all that had passed between them, though they'd reconciled as best they could.  That he'd never ended up finding love or marriage, but had reached the end of his life fulfilled nonetheless.

Once, Lukas admits that he'd laughed when he first saw Python again because he'd long since forgotten the details of his face. "I'd remembered you less...pointy," he says in that flat, dry way that he has, and Python is far too amused to be the least bit offended.

Often, they merely sit in companionable silence, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, Python is content.

Still, ever since the day Lukas was brought back to the castle, he's been aware that they're waiting for Forsyth.  It's hard to say how he knows- it's just _there,_ buried somewhere deep in whatever is left of him.  Whatever fate eventually awaits them, they can't reach it without him.  Python has long suspected that his presence here is somehow tied to the location of his grave, a hunch seemingly confirmed by Lukas' appearance.  But Forsyth has been gone for decades, found another home and even married.  Like Lukas, Forsyth has also lived a lifetime without him, and spent it avoiding the capital and the heartbreak he left there at all costs.  There's no reason to think he would want to be brought back here.

It's impossible to know what will happen if he isn't. Maybe they'll just continue to exist, stuck in this liminal state forever.  Python supposes that he'll get by, like always, but eternity sounds like a very long time.

-

His worries turn out to be unfounded.  One evening in Avistym, he and Lukas sit on the same orange tree branch, surrounded by the sort of soft, warm rain that Python had once loved and wishes he could still feel.  The massive gates creak open, as they always do to admit a welcome visitor, and clattering down the path comes a single horse and cart bearing an unmarked and unassuming coffin.

The burial the next morning is just as gray and rainy, and hardly anyone attends- the King has been in ill health himself for some time, and most others who would have are already gone.  The only two observers who remember the dead man as more than a name are two figures, no more material than wisps of smoke, who stand shoulder to shoulder beneath a tree. The grave is dug between theirs and the wooden box lowered, and when that familiar presence appears behind them, they know who it is before they even turn.

"Hey," Python says, quiet and choked with emotion.  "Long time, no see."

Forsyth's young, unlined face is the picture of utter shock as he looks from Python to Lukas, then at his own hands, and through them, the newly disturbed earth and the stone marked with his name and _Knight of the One Kingdom_.  When his gaze returns to his friends, this time with _understanding,_ for a moment he says nothing.  Then, he does the most perfectly, hopelessly _Forsyth_ thing possible.

He buries his face in his hands and starts to cry.

"C'mon, quit blubberin'," Python rasps, his own eyes suspiciously wet.  "It's only been fifty years, you're gonna make me think you've gone soft."

Lukas smiles softly and says what Python almost managed to. "We've missed you."

Forsyth must have questions, but he keeps them to himself, just as Python doesn't ask him why he chose to be brought here instead of laid to rest with his wife.  It doesn't matter now.

Still sniffling despite the wide grin on his face, Forsyth reaches for them both and pulls them close.  It isn't quite how Python remembers it from being alive- less warm, less substantial, just a faint echo of the feeling of touch- but it's more than he thought he would ever get again.

"I never thought-" Forsyth starts, and even though he can't finish, Python understands.

However, it seems that that this reunion is to be brief.  Already, they seem to be fading, less visible through the curtain of rain, and Python feels as though something unseen is pulling him, severing the final string tying him to the castle grounds and the physical world.  He supposes that his guess was right, then.

Lukas must feel it too.  He turns to his companions, eyes full of quiet curiosity, and asks, "Where do you think we'll go from here?"

Python laughs hoarsely and shrugs. "Hell if I know.  I didn't believe in any of this junk."

"Well, wherever it is, we'll go together," Forsyth swears, fist over his heart, and it's like no time has passed at all.

Had anyone looked, for the briefest instant, they might have seen three gray figures- tall, armored, standing straight as if in their prime- join hands beneath an orange tree.  A moment later, they are gone, leaving only memory and the gentle patter of rain on a row of stones. 

**Author's Note:**

> More Python writing can be found here- http://aimless--archer.tumblr.com/ Hopefully I'll have some actual fic to post here eventually as well. XD


End file.
